This morning it is soaking wet outside, but the rain seems to have stopped for now, but the latest revision to the forecast has it starting again at 11am. It could then continue through to 4pm, but for that whole time it is only shown as being a 50% chance of rain. So some of that time maybe dry. There is also a 50% chance of rain at 7pm.  The afternoon should start at 13° C, and it may only fall to 11° C after sunset. Tomorrow could feature a scattering of sunny spells, but at just 10° C it will be a very cool day.

   The great highlight of yesterday was a shopping trip to Aldi. Other than that I don't really have much to show for yesterday. I think the problem was the cold and greyness in the afternoon did nothing to inspire me. I don't think I mentioned it yesterday morning, but In was contemplating a quick flick around with a damp flannel before going to Aldi, but I had a full shower.
  I mentioned the highlight of the morning when writing yesterday morning. It was the delivery of the Ghost Whale beer advent calendar, and here's the picture of the box once the outer plain cardboard box had been removed. I had a little peak inside, and as guess by the shallow depth of the box, it is all cans. Many are just 330ml, but there are a fair amount of 550ml, and at least one 650ml cans. If you look carefully at the top of the box you'll see there are pop-out cardboard "hatches" for each day. I guess it looks good even if it is stupid - you would need a pair of forceps with blades as thin as razor blades and still struggle to pull a can through one of those holes.

  My walk to and from Aldi was not that good. I think it was only on the way home that there were some sunny spells, and even then I was walking on the shaded side of the road. I was carrying quite a heavy load. In my rucksack I had four 2 litre bottles of Diet Coke, and a 70cl bottle of whisky. It was a rather heavy rucksack. The two bags I used for the rest were moderately heavy too, but I took care to get them balanced, and that made it less stressful.

  I bought a few things that were not exactly a good idea, and when I have eaten them, and declared they were disappointing, the whole exercise could be described as disappointing. Mostly that refers to two ready meals. I also sort of regret buying two 4 packs of wholemeal rolls. I did it without checking the sugar content - and maybe that was a mistake, but possibly not. All I really wanted were just two rolls.

  I wanted those two rolls because I had a couple of lamb grills in the fridge that I had bought from the reduced price counter in Tesco. They were there because they were on their sell by date. They had been in my fridge 3 or 4 days at least. I had a plan to use them as burgers in buns. That is exactly what I did. To make them a bit richer/flavourful I squirted some mayonnaise on the buns (which were fresh enough to tear in half without having to use a knife), and I sprinkled some dried mint on them before I put the grills between the two halves. They must have been incredibly unhealthy, but of course that also means they were incredibly tasty !

  I had a bit of a snooze after that rather late (2pm ?) lunch. When I woke up I didn't really do much for the rest of the day. One small deviation from that was that I got suckered into a so called Black Friday deal when a text message came through. It looked like a scam, and so I didn't click their link, but went direct to The Bier Company website using my own bookmarked link. The "deal" was they were flogging off the rest of their beer advent calendars with £50 off.

  If I had the patience I would scroll back through a years worth of emails to find how much I paid for last year's beer advent calendar from then. I strongly suspect that £50 off took the price down to something approaching how much I paid last year. Many of the 24 beers were fairly common, and could be bought from supermarkets, but there were a few surprises that were interesting. Plus, like last year, there are a pair of horrible looking Bier Company socks in the box. Fortunately I know someone who likes garish socks - Michael - so I don't have to worry about a Xmas present for him again this year.

  After my lamb grill burgers I decided I should take it easy when dinner time came around. In fact I didn't take it quite as easy I should have. I had four chilli dusted rice cakes with squeezable cream cheese with slices of German peppered salami on them. I had that semi-light dinner at about my usual time of 7pm while I watched or listened to some TV. There was not a lot on, although Sky Arts were showing some music programmes. I mostly listened to them while reading. One of the shows was a Peter Gabriel concert, and I found it most disappointing. I am not really a fan, but I like some stuff he has done during his solo career. He was a lot better as vocalist for Genesis.

  Somehow it was quite late when I went to bed. That did have the advantage of making it easy to fall asleep. I don't remember a lot about last night - not even the dream I think I dreamed, and thought to be so important I should describe it! Oh well.... I certainly remember this morning as being very different, although it did seem to continue a trend that started almost at the beginning of the night.

  I barely remembered being asleep most of the time, but I was aware of 2 or even 3 hour jumps of time on the clock. At 6am I woke up, and thought it was probably time to get up. I did my usual....I went to the toilet, and then scrubbed my hands before pricking a finger for a drip of blood for my blood glucose meter. It was 8.6mmol/l - probably a fair figure after  what I ate yesterday, and not that far off my typical average. I also took my morning dose of assorted pills. By that time it was feeling a bit chilly, despite the heater being on low all night. I decided I would go back to bed for 10 minutes before getting dressed in indoor only, warm clothes.

  Once in bed I closed my eyes, and tried to imagine I was feeling more comfortable than I actually felt. When I opened my eyes again I noticed that it was gone 8am, and I had had my longest lay in for ages. Since that I have had not one, but two lots of instant noodles, and I am increasingly starting to worry about how late it is getting. If all goes to plan I will have time to do a very quick shopping trip to Tesco. I'll probably buy more, but I specifically want a birthday card. By about 3.30pm I hope to be on a bus heading towards Blackheath. I want to be at The British Oak, on the Charlton side of Blackheath very soon after 4pm when Brian Bath's 70th birthday party/gig is due to start. I don't know how long I'll stay, but I definitely want to get some pictures, and ideally some video of Miranda singing.